Biography
Ben Judell was a visionary whose significant role in Hollywood history remains largely unrecognized. His entire career revolved around movies, initially managing the Mutual Film Exchanges—once the producer of Charles Chaplin's shorts—and becoming an independent film distributor in 1917. He mastered marketing low-budget features and built a solid reputation over more than two decades.
In 1938, Judell briefly joined Progressive Pictures, producing several exploitation films that fueled his ambition for bigger projects. He founded Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC) and boldly placed a two-page ad in Box Office Magazine in the summer of 1939, declaring that the American public demanded action films, implying PDC would deliver. Judell then revealed an ambitious 1939 production slate featuring three separate western series, each with eight films starring Tim McCoy, George Houston, and a peculiar Andy Hardy-like series called "The Sagebrush Family," set in the Southwest with veteran character actor James Gleason and his real-life wife and son. Energetic, Judell placed another trade ad announcing a million-dollar production budget for the 1939-40 season and doubled the number of planned releases. Whether hype or reality, he assembled a capable production team and built a studio in Prescott, Arizona. Sigmund Neufeld, former producer at Puritan Pictures, signed on, along with six associate producers and veteran directors. Distribution deals with 12 film exchanges were secured, ensuring cash flow.
However, Judell made the same critical error that doomed Grand National Pictures in 1937: producing an expensive film without guaranteed revenue. Grand National's $900,000 "Something to Sing About" (1937) was their financial ruin; Judell’s counterpart was "Hitler: Beast of Berlin" (1939), later retitled "Goose Step." Though not a total failure, it faced censorship hurdles across various states, localities (some sympathetic to Nazi Germany), and foreign markets. Revenue dried up, debts accumulated, and PDC teetered on collapse. Sigmund Neufeld stepped in after distributors requested Pathe Film Labs—the main lienholder on a $90,000 processing bill—to delay foreclosure. Neufeld paid off past debts, backed by attorney Robert S. Benjamin for Pathe, but Judell was no longer part of the operation.
Within three months, Judell had built a studio, established distribution, battled censorship, produced seven low-budget films in various stages, and spent $1 million. Yet, less than nine months after his initial announcement, his dream ended. His legacy lies in what arose from its ashes. Pathe, a French company with a strong U.S. presence during the silent era—distributing for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett—had lost much of its U.S. distribution after its representative Paul Brunet returned to France in the mid-1920s, leaving only processing operations. When PDC collapsed, Neufeld negotiated a deal granting Pathe a stake in the new company. Under Nazi-occupied France, Pathe likely viewed this as a way to recover owed funds rather than re-enter production, as shown by their lack of branding on Neufeld’s films, which would have been a step down from their glory days distributing Harold Lloyd’s early works.
In November 1940, Neufeld reorganized the company as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), known for its notoriously low-budget B-movies. Even independent theater owners criticized PRC's early releases for poor production values. Over time, PRC's output slightly improved, and a few films from its catalog remain of interest, including The Devil Bat (1940), Corregidor (1943), Detour (1945), The Enchanted Forest (1945), and Railroaded! (1947). PRC operated until 1948, when it was absorbed by Eagle-Lion and eventually became a subsidiary of United Artists.
